Post Malone - August 26th

Pitchfork 52

In a post-Rick Ross rap universe, the repercussions for being outed as phony are lower than they’ve ever been. For artists on the come up, social media can be a digital journal of embarrassing missteps—think web sleuths unearthing Travis Scott’s disparaging tweets about his label boss T.I.—but in a time where catfishing can get you on a TV show, these mostly make for momentary hiccups, not career destroyers. These are ideal conditions for someone like metal-and-folk enthusiast-turned-singsong-rapper Austin Post, now known as Post Malone, to flourish. He is a rap charlatan for the digital age, and his debut mixtape August 26th is like falling down an acoustic rap cover k-hole.

It's worth a quick glance back at the twisty road that led to Post Malone's career. He found ubiquity on Soundcloud last fall with the novelty single “White Iverson,” an homage to the iconic NBA guard. A year and some change earlier, though, he was Leon Dechino, an over-the-top character with a “Tim & Eric”-style surrealist comedy music video called “Why Don’t You Love Me.” The song was created with help from his friends at TeamCrafted, a collective of gamers dedicated to playing and making tutorials for the sandbox game Minecraft. (In one of their videos, Post seems to denounce the song, saying “That’s it. That’s the one song. I’m done making music.”) Before that, he was playing Bob Dylan covers as Austin Richard. As a teen, he was in a hardcore band, a move spurred on by his love of the game Guitar Hero. It isn’t impossible for him to be all of these things at once—hardcore punk, satirist musician, folk singer, diehard gamer, and flex rapper—but there’s something a little disingenuous about going from prodigal son of the Dallas Cowboys corporate infrastructure to a cornrow-wearing, grill-bearing poster boy for appropriation. When asked about his place in the rap world in an interview with The Fader, he all but admitted this, saying, “At 40 years old, I'm gonna be a country singer. That's down the line.”

Even if you were to overlook his questionable origins entirely, it's difficult to excuse his shortcomings as a songwriter. Every song is a rap-cliche house of cards, built on some some basic variation on "balling": how he's doing it, who he's doing it like, how you aren't doing it. On “Monte,” the spiritual sequel to “White Iverson,” named for Indiana Pacers guard Monta Ellis, he gets outrapped by Lil Yachty, of all people. He has no legible personality outside the confines of "marginally famous person excited to trade fame for sex": On “Get Wit U,” he raps, “Wanna Fuck? I’m almost famous”; on “Never Understand,” he raps, “Said they see me at the show, they was in the front row/ They wanna fuck, I told them bitches come and jump on my bus.”

The moments where Post Malone finds the most success on August 26th are when he highlights his schizoid background instead of trying to hide it. His cover of Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams” takes liberties with the melodies and structure before melting down into a backbone for the haunting thumper “Come Down.” The closer, “Oh God,” sounds like it could soundtrack a modern spaghetti western with chords that crunch under his distorted croons. Additionally, the 2 Chainz-featuring “Money Made Me Do It” is a nice tribute to slain Atlanta rapper Bankroll Fresh with floating harmonies that settle just below the surface of steel drum synths. Malone's redeeming trick is his way with melody, and some of them are enchanting, particularly on the Jeremih duet “Fuck,” which vague alludes to the Chicago singer’s “Fuck U All The Time.”

The bulk of the production comes from the Atlanta duo FKi, the team behind songs like Travis Porter’s “Make It Rain,” Travis Scott’s “Sloppy Toppy,” the Rich Homie Quan and Young Thug duet “Get TF Out My Face,” and more recently 2 Chainz’s “Watch Out.” A lot of the beats do fun things with hollowed-out synths and dribbling hi-hat patterns, but there isn’t nearly enough firepower to overcome Post’s verses, which are a series of dead-end signs. It's hard to know what Malone should be doing to strengthen his work; he doesn't really have an identity or a true north in his music, a more interesting direction to point towards. This is ultimately his biggest problem: Complete reinvention can be a fine and sometimes even necessary thing, but if you’re going to be someone else, at least be creative about it.